YSaC, Vol. 751: It’s hard to swallow.

Ceremonial Esophagus – $40

Ceremonial Esophagus – Solid Wood Construction and has black felt liner. Very solid construction with nice detail on outside and will make safe containment for storing valued or fragile items. – Unique $40.00

Assorted Fish and Butterfly Pendants (12 pcs) $24.00

C’mon, sing with me!

The ceremonial esophagus is connected to the … ritualistic trachea! The ritualistic trachea is connected to the … liturgical larynx! The liturgical larynx is connected to the … ecclesiastical epiglottis! …

This creeps me out a little. The “Ceremonial Esophagus” looks like it may once have contained someone’s cremains. Maybe Sparky is having trouble making money selling his assorted fish and butterfly pendants, looked at old Aunt Agnes still on the mantle and thought, “hey, if I dump out Agnes, I bet I could make money selling that fancy schmancy box on the CragsList(sic).”

Well since you’re in NY, I could point you in the direction of a few dark and twisted places that I may or may not have frequented in my youth 😉
(East Village, that’s where to find the good dark and twisted)

Silence in the Library? Yeah, I’d do some checks to make sure Grahams not just a data ghost.

On an quasi-related topic, I am not able to give anyone doors–the +1 button is not even there. Plus, the ‘400 error’ page keeps kicking me off the entire website every time I post a comment. The comment will be posted, but I can’t get back on YSaC at all for about ten minutes. Is anyone else having problems?

That happens to me ALL THE TIME, Laurel. Definitely clear cache and history at least. What browser are you on? In Firefox, if you go into tools-options-privacy and click the “settings” button in “clear private data” and check all the boxes except the one that says “saved passwords”, tell it to clear private data whenever you close the browser, then close it and reopen it, that will certainly fix it. For some reason that’s what I always have to do in Flock (which is based on Firefox).

Edit: When you reopen the browser, go back to the same place and uncheck at least the cookies check box, otherwise it won’t remember that you were signed in to anything…if you want it to remember, that is.

Ceremonial Esophagus will be performing their original song “Fish Pins!“, and Silence in the Library will be performing covers of “Gee, Officer Krupke” and “I Feel Pretty“, from the musical “West Side Story“.

[L. Bernstein-J. Robbins corey]
Speaking of WSS, I just saw the B’way revival of that while I was on vacation. 50 years on it is still amazing – the choreography was original and the music is fantastic, and I was reminded of the fact that it was groundbreaking for its time. I’m not a giant fan of musicals, but that soundtrack is a Desert Island Disc, for sure. [/Bernstein-Robbins corey]

What, Astro, you don’t think that SitL would be more likely to play “Cool”?

I never actually heard Cool. When we watched the film in English class, that’s the only song we skipped over, if you don’t count the teacher’s distracting arm waving and shouting in a vain attempt to censor the f word at the end of Gee, Officer Krupke.

I find it very mildly funny that you use the supposedly gender-neutral “they” in relation to my English teacher, because she spent a whole day on why using it is wrong, because “they” is collective, and the proper gender-neutral pronoun is always “he”, although it is acceptable to use “he or she” if you do not wish to be sexist.

Actually, I was thinking more of “the school [administration]” collectively; they may appear to function monolithically but it’s all of those little minds separately that cause lame decisions such as that to be made and then carried out, by persons singular or plural.

[personal corey]I had someone try to argue with me the other day that words’ meanings don’t change. Then, when given an example, he claimed that nouns’ meanings don’t change. I hit him with two MORE examples. He then proceeded to tell me that people had voted to define a word and I had to adapt to the will of the majority.

Bless his heart.

I told him to go ahead and try to pass language purity laws and see how well they actually work.

“He” might be the proper gender-neutral terms but oodles of people, by usage, have decided that “they” is more appropriate.

Always listen to your English teacher and then remember that most people don’t bother and will merrily abuse the language into whatever shape suits the community.[personal corey]

“I had someone try to argue with me the other day that words’ meanings don’t change.”

*facepalm*

Sure, Shakespeare. Whatever you say.
The classes that made me most nerdily excited when getting my degrees were the ones on the history and changes of the English language. Those are the texts I kept afterward. I would probably have had to be carried away after uncontrollably laughing myself incontinent and hysterically unconscious upon hearing that statement. You’re much more polite and self-controlled than I am.

[corey] L’académie Française is this “learned body” basically devoted to maintaining the purity of the French language. They actually DO get to vote on the proper usage and definitions of words. But even their rulings have no legal effect, and some are ignored if the general population has adopted a different usage. So, basically, if the language purity “laws” don’t even always work in a country that is very snooty about the purity of its language, such a thing will CERTAINLY not work here.

Oh, Moira, you could have also informed this man that as there is no de jure official language in the United States, only a de facto one, the power to select an official language was left to the states (and some have done so). So passing any sort of national “language purity laws” would be unconstitutional under the 10th amendment. 😉

As for “they”, I had to train myself out of using it as a singular pronoun when I went to law school. It remains unacceptable for use in legal writing. Hell, we can’t even use contractions in legal writing. [/corey]

LoL! In a CEC Biz Law class, heard a great aside on that–a contraction is perfectly valid language if you can find a a contract lawyer to perfectly define it first.

Now, as to the simpleton inflicted-on-Moira, said worthy probably is an exemplar of the level of forensic education in our nation today. All languages change; the meanings, usage, and even grammar change over time. Even in Latin, an allegedly “dead” language.

What IoM-spark probably meant was that words ought not have flexible meanings within a given context. East probably ought to be spinward planetary direction. Or that land mass collectively known as the “orient.” Unless a giddy, soon-to-suicide, italian teen nymphet name of Julie is about.

Unless comedic intent is meant (which would require a rather sophisticated audience, too).

“Is that the East?”
“No, this is Sicily. are you some sort of Capulet?”
“No, I’m trying to orient to the east.”
“Told’ya, dis issa Sicillia, capeche?”
“I came from an anti-spinward direction; is this east?”
“I don’t care what you spinster Aunt told’ya to do, this is still Sicily.
And why you insist in jabbering at me in Italian is giving me an itch–the name’s Monty, Montgomery Guey, from Brisbane!”

No internet in Maine either? I just talked to a woman the other day who, when I asked if I could email some paperwork to her said, “I don’t got email, we don’t have internets in Connecticutt.”
Have fun in Stephen King’s playground, Silva!

Be careful Bridgete, it could be spreading all over New England. Wasn’t Isaac supposed to be back? See, Vermont’s fallen as well.
[preemptive Mudslicker] Yes, South Park did this recently. [/preemptive Mudslicker]

Astro: Had completely forgot you were a North Carolinian. We have just spent the last couple weeks of vacation on the East Coast, a week of it traveling south down the Outer Banks. My first visit here. What a beautiful state you have! We have enjoyed everyone and everything thoroughly. BBQ, hush puppies, sweet tea. (swoon) Triple figure heat and humidity. (swoon)

We head back to the West Coast on Tuesday. Will be a more regular commentator after that time. Missed you guys!!

Archy: Oh, there’s more. You’ve got to see the mountains in the fall. There’s also a lot of really great stuff in the Piedmont. And the zoo in Asheboro is one of the largest natural habitat zoos in the country, or something like that.

Also, if you’re still in NC, then if you end up on Wrightsville Beach, I highly recommend the Oceanic restaurant.

No, it’s more that I don’t own a laptop (yet) and don’t have an expensive phone (it makes calls and sends text messages and I call play Tetris on it, that’s all I need it to do), and won’t be lugging my PC with me on vacation.

[matt]What? We can’t have an honest line crossing? We have to go making a false association about girding (securing) based on the oft-used phrase which simply referred to protecting one’s vulnerable bits prior to battle because it uses a word that is used in other contexts?

I motion to strike Cap’s third-degree-stretch of an entendre on the grounds that he is smarter than that.[/matt]

Shoot, I’ll second the motion, if it means not having to read out of the Thou Shallt Commit no Offense of Squick Meant To or Not for any Intent, even if you are the Spanish Inquisition, and we all know about how they are Expected . . . er, manual any more at all today.

(Which was under fun, very much Title I, §, 1, A, a), with tiresome inclusions and exclusions riddled through, i.e., LVII §101.1 applies in every case, except as B, or C. or G b), c), e) and f) apply )

Seemed simpler to assume all actions, innocent or not, were specifically excluded unless one could provide contravening authority to assert otherwise.

[Vacation corey] Maine is nice this time of year. They have the “internets” up there, but unless you are near a larger city, it’s mostly dial up. Have a lobster for me. If you can find it, have the “Shore Lunch”. And make sure they bring you your dessert.
[/corey]

I live on a dirt road in the woods in Massachusetts, I’m stuck with dial-up already (for the time being, until I buy a laptop and can go sit in cafes with wifi). I’ve tried begging the various service providers, but none of them want to bring the wires down our street. So people only 2 streets away have modern connections, I’m stuck in the 90’s… le sigh.

Yeah, I have three two’s (one is post-marked for 1st day of issue)–so I should have thought of that.

I chose the Presidential series over the Sacajawea as they are both “gold-coloured” and the same size; the other three are all different in size and appearance.

And, technically, the presidentials are supposed to be replacing the sac’s; come to think of it, one can argue that the Two is not a circulating bill, even if perfectly good tender, just like the Ike “silver dollar.”

Hmm, Jackson, Hamilton, Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington, then a gold-colored and a silver-colored dollar coin would work.

And, I have one of each of those (although that is about the limits of my entire liquidity)

“The ceremonial esophagus is connected to the … ritualistic trachea! The ritualistic trachea is connected to the … liturgical larynx! The liturgical larynx is connected to the … ecclesiastical epiglottis! …”

I don’t remember the last time I laughed so hard reading the comment[s] under the ads!

[Egyptian corey} Although technically sarcophagi, “canopic” jars were used for internal organs removed from the deceased’s body before interment or entombment. These devices often resembled full-size sarcophagi. [/Egyptian corey]

I knew a woman who changed her name to Barrette. She said she just felt more like a Barrette than a Jennifer. I asked why she added the “te” to the end and she said it made the name more feminine. I told her it made it sound hairy to me. She punched my arm

Well, in far Nippon, there are some specialty places that serve live, and semi-live seafood to people. Not that I could tell what made “dancing shrimp” so much better than the ordinary kind (and for 20,000¥ cheaper).

Indeed, Lola.
That gem from Barnes & Barnes. I can imagine Lennier as Will Robinson but, somehow, I can’t imagine him singing “Fish Heads.” Really, it would have been awesome if JMS had put a scene in the show (perhaps when he was putting the motorcycle together) when Lennier encountered, and was puzzled by, a Barnes & Barnes song.

Got to share this with you YSaCers because you will best understand it. While driving around town today runnng errands, my honey and I were trying to come up with a good word for stupid drivers. Mike said: “Stupendular. When the stupid just hangs off of them.”

That reminds me of the traffic jams going out of the fireworks show at the State Fairgrounds on the 4th of July. On one of those occasions, my sister and I learned a shiny new word from our dad. It started with an F.

hey, a really fancy wooden toilet seat has been converted into an even fancier wooden casket for my pet reptiles. I could really use that. If I had (dead) pet reptiles, that is. But whatever, it’s fancy and wooden and everything, so.. err… whatever.